


Tracing Hermione

by Azashenya



Series: Aza's Harry Potter 'Verse [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-02-28 08:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2726114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azashenya/pseuds/Azashenya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of moments through Hermione's childhood and her early impressions of Hogwarts.</p><p>Note: this is readable despite not being complete yet.  Each chapter is a complete scene/sequence in itself.  I may be coming back later to add in some more scenes from the books from Hermione perspective.</p><p>Disclaimer: the world and canon characters belong to J.K. Rowling, I am merely borrowing them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Playground Injustice

Hermione Granger was the sort of little girl who memorized the picture books her parents' read her and used them to start teaching herself to read. She had no siblings and no one ever told her that she couldn't teach herself to read and her parents had lots of interesting books in the house to entice her.

She begged and begged until her parents let her start school the month before she turned four, a whole year before she had to start by law. She was hugely excited about all the things she'd get to learn and about her big-girl school uniform and backpack.

One of the best things about her first day at school is seeing the school library and realising that she would get to visit there every day at school, without her mum there to assume she'd only want to look at the little kids' books.

She is disappointed that most of the other kids can't read yet, even the ones who are nearly five. At least learning to write is something new and she concentrates hard on practicing until her hand stops being clumsy and she can make the letters look just right.

Sometimes she plays with the other kids at recess but most of the time they're boring or they complain that she's too bossy so she often spends her time in the library or reading a book in a quiet outside corner.

~~~

Strange things sometimes happen around her but Hermione doesn't really notice them until one lunchtime when she is six. The ground is muddy from the recent rain but there has been enough sun to dry the wooden benches and the librarian has told Hermione to go read outside for a while. So she is sitting cross-legged on a quiet bench, reading. A shadow falls over the book and she looks up to see some of the older girls from her class standing over her.

She closes her book with her finger marking the page and looks up, trying to keep her expression neutral and non-provoking.

“Yes?”

“Whatcha reading there, Hermoany?”

Hermione tries not to flinch at the hated nickname. When she doesn't immediately reply the bigger girl snatches the book from her fingers and roughly flicks through the pages.

“You can't be reading this, there aren't any pictures,” jeering and cruelly dismissive.

“I am! Give it back!” Hermione springs up to reclaim her book but the other backs away, waving it at her friends.

“I know what we should do, we should put pictures in it so that little Hermoany can read it properly instead of sitting there pretending to, like a little, posing know-it-all.”

“GIVE IT BACK!” Hermione shouts, terrified that they'll damage the book.

Without anyone touching her the bully flies backwards as if shoved, landing in a large mud puddle. The book flies out of her hands, straight to Hermione who catches it and wraps her arms tight around it, backing away. All three girls are staring at her then the mud covered bully is crying and yelling for a teacher.

Hermione gets in trouble, of course. With the other girl crying and mud-soaked and Hermione without a splatter of mud or a scratch on her. The other two girls both say that Hermione pushed her despite the fact that she knows she didn't and knows they saw that she never touched her. When she keeps insisting that she didn't the adults are more and more convinced that she's lying, it just isn't fair.

Her parents are called and her mother has to leave work to come take her home. She doesn't believe Hermione either, telling her that no matter the provocation shoving another kid into a mud puddle is unacceptable. Hermione fumes. When her father gets home and doesn't believe her either she takes herself to her room to contemplate the general unfairness of the universe.


	2. Curiouser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione discovers something odd while reading a book.
> 
> (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is by Lewis Carroll and was first published in 1865)

The following summer holidays, it's a warm, sunny day. Hermione is up her tree reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, her mother having sent her outside to 'get some fresh air'. She is deeply enthralled by the story when a flicker of not-tree movement at the edge of her vision catcher her attention. She looks up and blinks at the rapidly fading impression of a disembodied smile. Looking back down at the book she re-reads:

> “All right,” said the Cat; and then it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

Hermione frowns at the page and feels very Alice-like for a moment before continuing to read. She spends a few pages half watching to see if anything else is going to happen but nothing does and soon she is fully immersed in the odd story again, the words painting scenes inside her mind.

Alice is in the middle of trying to play croquet when it happens again. Trying hard to keep her eyes on the page Hermione catches glimpses of pink flamingos and red and white playing cards with heads, hands and feet. As she tries to look without moving her eyes she stops reading and they disappear.

She frowns, looking up at her leafy surroundings and back down at the book.

“Curiouser,” she mutters, feeling definite kinship with Alice.

Again nothing happens until she has stopped watching for it and has lost herself back in the story. When it does happen again it is during the Mock Turtle's mad description of a dance with seals, turtles, lobsters and other sea and shore creatures.

Hermione determinedly keeps reading, trying to pay attention to the words while half watching the semitransparent shapes around her. It reminds her of visiting the circus and watching one of the clowns balancing on a ball while juggling six things. It only lasts a moment then the images disappear again but now she is sure that it wasn't just her imagination.

She spends the rest of the afternoon trying to invoke more of flickers of images. When she runs out of book she returns to the start in hopes of seeing the White Rabbit or the Caterpillar or maybe a giant Alice sticking out of a house but it doesn't seem to happen when she is reading it all for the second time.

Eventually her mother calls her for dinner and Hermione closes the book with a sigh and climbs down the tree.

At dinner she tells her parents and they seem really interested until her mother says, “What a good imagination you have, Hermione.”

Hermione realises that they don't actually believe her, that they think she's just making it up or something. She opens her mouth to protest, remembers the incident earlier in the year, and decides to just eat her dinner.

Over the rest of the summer Hermione spends her time reading, up her tree or in her room, hoping to catch a glimpse of her own personal 3d movie. She finds that some books invoke it better than others as she gets glimpses of galloping horses and pirate ships, swashbuckling mice and flying chairs, and many other things. With practice she starts to get the trick of both concentrating and splitting her attention so that she can enjoy the images without them immediately disappearing like pricked soap bubbles. She doesn't know if anyone else can see them, the sound of someone approaching is enough to break her concentration.


	3. Skipping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skipping games don't always go right.

On a grey autumn day Hermione is queuing for her turn to skip. Watching the girl currently skipping in the middle of the long rope Hermione joins in the group chant.

Mabel, Mabel, set the table.  
Just as fast as you are able.  
Don’t forget the salt, sugar, vinegar, mustard  
And red-hot PEPPER! 

Then she joins the excited yells and cheers as the two girls turning the rope make it go faster and faster until the girl in the middle can't keep up anymore and gets her ankles whacked with the rope. Out, she swaps places with one of the turners and they head for the back of the queue. The next girl in line stands under the rope and they all start again.

During the pause, Hermione runs through her mental list of all the rhymes they know, including ones she asked her grandmother for and the ones in the book she found at the public library. Maybe after people get bored of this one they could do one of the action ones, or one where they end up trying to fit everyone under the rope...

Mabel, Mabel, set the table.  
Just as fast...

That girl is a moment too late jumping and the rope snakes to a halt.

A couple more take their turns and then it's Hermione's go. Balancing on the balls of her feet she waits for the right moment then starts jumping.

She makes it through the short rhyme without any problems and is ready for the sudden speed increase after pepper. Her focus narrows to the thin plastic rope whooshing around her and how fast she has to jump as it gets faster and faster.

And faster and faster and faster. The rope is a blur now and there is a thrumming sound as it splits the air around her. She is focusing too intently to wonder at how she is jumping so fast and the sound of surprise around her is a muffled murmur.

Then one end of the rope slips from its grasping hand and spins through the air like the tip of a bullwhip. Without time to think Hermione jumps impossibly high as it goes under her at waist height. For a tiny moment the world seems suspended then the rope slams into the girl holding the other end with a nasty sound and Hermione lands on her feet again without even a stumble.

There is a shocked silence as one girl grabs a hand gone numb and the other drops to the ground with her arms wrapped around her, gasping for breath, too shocked yet to start crying. Then the silence is broken as the watching girls flock forwards.

Hermione is the first to reach the injured girl but is shoved away by others.

“Don't touch her, freak.”

From tone, words and looks Hermione knows that her classmates blame her for this even if they have no idea how.

She steps back, hesitates for a moment then runs to get the duty teacher and the school nurse.

This time none of the adults think it's her fault, instead lecturing the others about the now obvious dangers of swinging the rope too fast. If anything this makes it worse for Hermione as her school-mates resent being told off for something they've decided was all her fault. Retreating back to the library and her books she is careful to avoid spending time away from easy view of adults for the rest of that year.


	4. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While reading Black Beauty Hermione gives her parents a nasty shock.
> 
> (NB Black Beauty is a novel by Anna Sewell, first published in 1877)

It's a warm summer evening and Hermione is reading in bed, despite it being well past her bedtime. She has the curtain hooked back with one foot so that she can keep reading Black Beauty without getting caught. She keeps telling herself 'just one more chapter' but the chapters are short and by the time she realises that she's started another one she might as well read to its end.

As she reads she half watches the occasional images that flicker around her. The boy beating his pony and getting thrown off in the hedge. A carriage being pulled by Black Beauty and Ginger down odd streets and over bridges, surrounded by horse-drawn cabs, carts, carriages and omnibuses although Hermione isn't sure what they look like so they look a bit like a London bus being pulled by horses, which makes her laugh.

A couple of chapters later and a strange ostler left a lit-pipe in the stables and the horses woke to choking smoke. The air around Hermione thickens with illusionary smoke that turns to licking orange flames as the horse describes the frightening scene. Comfortable with the illusions Hermione welcomes the flames that make it feel even more like she is inside the story. Even though Hermione knows that she still has over half the book to go she is still worried that Black Beauty and Ginger won't get out and she forces herself not to skip ahead and read faster to find out sooner. Just as their own groom is calmly blindfolding the horse to coax him out Hermione's reading is interrupted by her mother's terrified screams.

“HERMIONE!!”

She is jerked from her bed by her screaming mother and roughly rolled on the floor. Hermione is terrified, any thoughts of the story she was reading or the benign illusions are overwhelmed by instinctive reactions to her mother's terror.

Her father rushes in and there is a confusion of shouting and her parents hands pushing and pulling at her. Through the chaos Hermione manages to decipher that her mother had seen the flames and thought her truly on fire.

“They weren't real, I wasn't on fire.” Hermione has to repeat this a few times in different ways before her parents hear her through their panic.

It takes time to calm her parents down enough to explain to them. She tries, again, to tell them about things coming out of books while she reads, the pictures in the air that they told her in the past were just her imagination. She can see her parents still fighting against the impossibility, wanting to be able to still dismiss it, but she can also see the lingering fright in her mother's eyes and in the way she is being held so tightly by both of her parents.

She tries to read the next chapter, to show them but it isn't a chapter with strong imagery and she cannot find the right concentration with her parents hovering, worried. She frowns in frustration and closes the book.

“Sorry, it doesn't always work, but you do believe me now, right?”

She knows that her parents are looking at each other over her head.

“Well...” her father begins.

“You didn't see it, John,” her mother interrupts him. “You didn't see her lying there with flames all around her.”

“I saw that nothing was burnt.”

There is a silence that says that that isn't the same thing as seeing the flames but no one says that out loud.

“I believe you, love,” her mother says softly.

Hermione sighs with relief and leans into her parents arms.

“I didn't know anyone else would be able to see them,” she admits.

“Has anything else strange been happening?” her father asks her in the tones of someone trying to find information to help make sense of the impossible.

Hermione is about to say no but hesitates, remembering the odd things that have happened at school. She tells them about the too fast skipping rope and the other things and this time they listen to her. It is very late by the time she gets to sleep that night and even later by the time her parents have finished talking about it.

After that Hermione is much more careful but at least she can talk to her parents about it now and it is reassuring to know that they are trying to figure it out too.


	5. The Worst Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reading a book about a school for witches Hermione wishes for the impossible.
> 
> (The Worst Witch was written by Jill Murphy, and was first published in 1974)

Now that she knows she has to be so much more careful at school, Hermione is saving the most promising books to read at home, where she can be alone. Like The Worst Witch, about a girl who gets to go to a witches school, in a drafty old castle, but isn't very good at it and is always getting into trouble. It is a small chapter book with much bigger writing than what she is usually reading, which means it is short. Much too short from the point of view of a girl who wishes such a school existed, some where that might understand what she can do that no one else she knows can. Even if it meant being as bad at everything as poor Mildred it would be worth it.

Looking out her bedroom window, with the small book pressed open in her hands, Hermione dreams of riding a broomstick with a black cat sitting behind her, serenely or clinging for dear life with all claws, either would do. She is tempted to see if she can make the broom downstairs fly but logic tells her that if there were such things as flying brooms, which there almost certainly aren't, they must be something rather more special than the broom she remembers her dad buying from the hardware store in town.

Reading the book she dreams of going to a school with lessons in spells, potions and chants, and a library! Hermione plans to spend many nights dreaming about what she might be able to find out in a library at a school like that.

It doesn't take her long to finish reading how Mildred managed to save the school from hostile takeover despite being the worst student they'd ever had.

Closing the book Hermione stares out the window. More than she has ever wanted anything in her life she wishes that the story were true. That somewhere out there there were schools for witches and wizards where the students fly on broomsticks and learn spells and potions and chants. But if there were such things then surely people would know about them, maybe not everyone but enough people that it couldn't be kept completely secret.

Hermione sighs. She knows that there can't be any such wonders in her future. In a couple of years she'll be going to Grammar School and that'll be followed by University to study to be a dentist like her parents or something else like that. 

Meanwhile she still has time for impossible dreams so she turns the book over and starts it again from the beginning.


	6. An Odd Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An odd stranger comes to the Granger's door, carrying a letter for Hermione.

It's the summer after she turned eleven and Hermione Granger is sitting at the kitchen table with her school holiday assignments piled around her, working hard to be ready for her second year at Grammar School. It's a Saturday afternoon and she can hear the roar of her father's lawn mower outside and the thumping sounds of her mother moving around upstairs so when there's a knock at the door Hermione goes to answer it herself rather than waiting for one of her parents to do so.

Standing on their doorstep is a strange man, he reminds Hermione of her teachers at school. Actually, with his not-old face, too-neat hair and brown tweed jacket he looks like a very young teacher who is trying to look older and more experienced than he actually is.

“Hello?” she greets him cautiously.

“Hello, you must be Hermione. I'm Michael Smith.” He sticks out his hand.

Hermione eyes him suspiciously. “How do you know my name?”

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair, disturbing the too-neat look.

“I've got a letter for you and I need to talk with you and your parents about it. Can you please fetch them or let me in or something?”

The eleven year old Hermione continues to watch him suspiciously.

“It's about a school,” he adds.

“I've already got a school.” She hesitates. “Okay, wait here.” She closes the door in his face and makes sure it's locked, he may look kind of pathetically harmless but he is still a total stranger who knows her name.

She shouts up the stairs to her mother, “MUM! There's a man at the door, he wants to talk to us about a school!”

“What?! Come up and tell me that again!” her mother shouts back.

Hermione runs up the stairs and repeats it in a less shouty voice, adding what details she has. Then she goes outside to repeat the process with her father, this time shouting to be heard over the noise of the lawnmower. When she gets back inside the stranger is in the sitting room and her mother is making tea. Hermione goes to help her, to get it done faster while her father goes to take his turn at greeting the stranger.

Hermione sips her glass of milk and watches the stranger while her mother pours cups of tea for the adults. There is something odd about him and it's bugging Hermione that she can't put her finger on it.

The stranger gets a letter out of his jacket pocket. It doesn't look like a normal letter: the paper is thick and cream-coloured instead of thin and white; there is no stamp or post mark; and the address is written in emerald green ink. There is even a big, purple wax seal on the back of it. It is the kind of envelope that Hermione imagines the invitation to a royal ball would be delivered in. 

He passes it to Hermione and she looks at her parents before opening it. Inside there are two folded sheets of the same heavy paper as the envelope. At the top of the first sheet it says:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL  
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Hermione blinks and reads it again. The words don't change. She looks up at the stranger.

“Is this a joke, Mr. Smith?”

He shakes his head and gives her a reassuring smile. “No joke. Keep reading and then we can talk.”

Aware of her parents hovering Hermione continues to read.

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
(Order of Merlin, first class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,  
Supreme Mugwump, internation Confed. Of Wizards)

This doesn't do anything to help convince Hermione that this isn't just some big joke.

Dear Miss Granger,  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted  
at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please  
find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.  
Term begins on September1. We await your owl by no  
later than July 31.  
Yours Sincerely  
(signed)Minerva McGonagall  
Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress

Hermione reads it twice before handing it to her parents and looking at the next sheet. It starts with the same school name and continues:

UNIFORM  
First-year students will require:  
1\. Three sets of plain work robes (black)  
2\. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear  
3\. One pair of protective gloves (dragonhide or similar)  
4\. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)  
Please note that all pupil's clothing should carry nametags.

COURSE BOOKS  
All students should have a copy of each of the following:  
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)  
by Miranda Goshawk  
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot  
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling  
A Beginner's Guide to Tranfiguration by Emeric Switch  
One Thousand Herbs and Spices  
by Phyllida Spore  
Magical Droughts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger  
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them  
by Newt Scamander  
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection  
by Quentin Trimble

OTHER EQUIPMENT  
1 wand  
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)  
1 set glass or crystal phials  
1 telescope  
1 set brass scales  
Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS  
ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

 

This is all much too good to be true. Hermione narrows her eyes at the stranger.

“Are you really, really sure this isn't just a big joke?”

“Yes, I'm really, really sure.”

She examines him as if he were an unusual insect.

“Pinky swear?”

She surprises a laugh out of him and he grins at her. “I haven't heard that one in a long time. Yes, I pinky swear that Hogwarts really is a school that teaches magic and that you really do have a place there and none of this is a joke.” He holds up his hand and Hermione links their pinky fingers together, still watching his face closely.

She looks back down at the page she is still holding. Spells and potions and wands and broomsticks.

“Where do you get all of this stuff?”

“Diagon Ally, it's a special street in London that only wizarding folks can get to. I'll guide you, if you decide to come.”

Hermione looks at her parents. “Please? I know I've already got my books for next year and you'd have to change my enrollment and buy me more uniforms and all that but please can I go?!” The thought of being offered this chance and then not getting to go is almost unbearable.

“Well...” her father says and her parents look at each other, doing that silent communication thing that adults sometimes do.

“Please?! They'll teach me how to do magic, do it properly and then we won't have to worry about accidents and you won't have to worry about anything strange happening at school and someone getting hurt or me getting into trouble.” She looks over at Michael Smith. “Right?”

Michael nods. “Yes, learning how to do proper spells will make it less likely that magical accidents will occur around you.”

Hermione's mother speaks up next to ask, “And she'll come home for holidays, if she goes to this Hogwarts?”

“Yes, there are two week holidays over Christmas and Easter and of course she'll be home for the summer holidays.”

Hermione puts her hand over her mouth to stop herself from saying 'Please' again.

Her father looks down at the letter again. “And would we be able to send her letters? This doesn't say what the school's address is.”

“The students are allowed to use the school owls to send letters home and you can have it bring back your letters to her or if you just write Hogwarts on the envelope you can send it through the Muggle mail, we have people in the post office who will see that it gets to the school."

“Muggle?”

“Ah, sorry. That's just a word for non-magical folk.”

There is a brief, awkward pause.

“When is the school's open day?” Hermione's father asks, breaking the silence.

“Ah, open day?”

“Yes, when new students and their parents can come in to see the school and meet some of the teachers.”

“Ah, no. No open days,” he looks slightly uncomfortable.

“Oh.”

Hermione presses her fingers tight to her lips, not wanting to say the wrong thing and ruin her chances.

“Many of the parents went to Hogwarts themselves and the castle is difficult to get to, it takes most of the day for the train that brings the students up from London.”

Hermione is pretty sure that this isn't helping to convince her parents to let her go.

“Well, how about a school prospectus?” her father is sounding more dubious about the whole thing.

“Um, well, there is a book on the history of the school. I don't have it on me but I'm sure Flourish and Blotts will have a copy when we go to Diagon Ally.” He looks at her parents' faces and continues hurriedly. “Or I could get them to send you a copy in the next couple of days. You have a couple of weeks to decide, before you have to let the school know she will be coming. Please, don't take longer than that.” He seems worried.

“What happens if I don't go?” Hermione asks.

He winces. “You won't be allowed to buy a wand or be shown how to find wizarding places and the Ministry of Magic would have to have someone keep an eye on you, incase any of the random magical accidents need tidying up. They might even have to send an Obliviator to wipe your memories if they thought things were that bad. It would be different if you came from a wizarding family, your parents could choose to teach you at home but your parents are both Muggles and they could no more teach you magic than merfolk could teach a dragon how to fly.”

“But...” Hermione looks down at the book list. “What if I got the books and studied them from home?”

Michael shakes his head. “It doesn't work like that and even if it did, sooner or alter something would go wrong and you'd need magical help to fix it, which your parents couldn't give you. At the school there are all the teachers to help as well as the school Healer, Madame Pomfrey.”

The thought of magic going wrong makes Hermione feel very quiet. She remembers the books about The Worst Witch and has a nasty suspicion that the mishaps in them would seem merely amusing compared to the sort of things that have Mr. Smith looking so worried.

Her mother clears her throat softly. “Hermione, please take a book outside to read. You can leave the letter on the table.”

Part of Hermione wants to stay and argue, another part of her wants to grab the letter and run all the way to London before her parents can forbid her going but yet another part of her is still frightened at the idea of magical accidents and is more than a little worried about going away to a strange boarding school.

“Yes, Mum.”

She lets the list slide out of her fingers and goes to fetch at book before going outside. She climbs her tree but she doesn't open the book to read, instead she sits there and tries to imagine what Hogwarts could be like.

 

To Hermione's disappointment Mr. Smith has gone by the time her mother calls her back inside, she would have liked to ask him more questions. She tries asking her parents about it but gets a frustrating “We're thinking about it, dear. It's a big decision.”

Her letter is still on the sitting room table so Hermione claims it and takes it upstairs. That night she sleeps with it under her pillow and dreams of magic.

 

It's two days later, on Monday morning, that the owl arrives and drops a parcel on the breakfast table, startling them all. It is addressed to Hermione so she gets to pull off the string and paper to reveal a thick, leather-bound book titled: Hogwarts: A History.

Hermione pushes aside her breakfast plate so that she can put the book on the table before opening it. On the title page, between the title and the author's name, there is a picture of a many towered castle atop a snowy cliff. There is something odd about it. Hermione stares at it for a moment before realising that the clouds above the castle are drifting slowly across the picture. She gasps and shows it to her parents.

They all watch it and touch the picture but it feels just like the rest of the page. It is quite strange and quite wonderful.

Paging through the book they find other magical pictures, not so many in the first few chapters but later ones have pictures of oil paintings and still later ones contain photographs of people who wave out at them or interact with with others in the same photo.

Her mother soon has to leave for work but Hermione and her father continue to look through the book together, breakfast forgotten. Eventually her father is overwhelmed by the strangeness and her enthusiasm and he leaves her to read the book by herself, with instructions to write up a summary for her parents.

A few days later (after Hermione has read the book cover to cover at least twice and her parents have had a chance to read her summary) they sit down to have a family discussion. With Hermione wriggly-excited and overflowing with facts and speculation from the book and with her parents concerned about making sure their eleven year old daughter truly understands how big a change it would be, the conversation spends a lot of time moving at cross purposes.

Eventually they agree that she can go to Hogwarts although her mother makes certain that Hermione knows there is still time to change her mind if she decides she doesn't want to go. Hermione thinks of all the strange and magical things in her new history book and is quite certain that she won't change her mind, not even a little bit.


	7. Diagon Alley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione gets her school things

One week after their strange visitor Hermione is sitting in the back of the car while her father drives them to London. She has her magical history book and her letter with her. She would have put the letter inside the book but the big wax seal would damage the pages so the letter is in the little bag Auntie Anna gave her last Christmas and she has her arms wrapped around both bag and book as she watches the countryside slide past her window.

London is big and Hermione likes watching the way it swells out of the farmland as they follow the spaghetti strands of motorway towards its heart. They don't drive all the way into the middle of the city, instead they leave the car in a multistory car park and catch the tube.

Michael Smith is waiting for them on a street corner that looks no different from the others they have passed. While the adults greet each other Hermione looks around, trying, and failing, to spot any shops selling magical items. A nudge from her mother pulls her attention back to what they're saying.

“This first bit can be a bit tricky. We need to go through the Leaky Cauldron to get to Diagon Alley but it's enchanted so that Muggles can't see it.” He smiles apologetically at Mr. and Mrs. Granger. “If you both concentrate on following Hermione and myself without paying attention to what building we're going into it will be fine.”

Hermione looks up at the grimy windows of the little pub then at her parents.

“You really can't see the pub?”

Her mother is looking confused. “What pub?” there is an edge of frustration in her voice.

“That one.” Hermione points at it. “Between the book shop and the record store.”

Both of her parents are looking confused and it's her father who responds this time, “There's nothing between them, Hermione. They share a wall.”

Hermione narrows her eyes and looks at Michael who gives her a conspiratorial smile. She isn't sure if she likes that. She looks between the pub and her parents again, knowing that if she wants to get her new school things they all need to get inside.

“Okay. Mum, Dad, I think you should hold my hands.”

Her father takes her book and bag and tucks them under one arm before taking her hand, her mother has already claimed the other. Once she has both adult hands securely in her own Hermione tows them through the door of the Leaky Cauldron, which is made more awkward by the narrowness of the door. Once inside she checks on her parents, who are blinking in confusion, before looking around herself.

Despite the external appearance of grime and neglect Hermione had expected something like a magical department store, full of light and magic instead it's exactly what it had looked like it would be, a dark, shabby, old pub. There are no electric lights, just oil lamps and candles so that cast flickering shadows.

With neither parent releasing her hand Hermione continues to look around as she follows Michael across the room. The more she looks the more oddities she can find, like the strange clothing and drinks, and a grubby rag moving across a table top without any hand pushing it. She wants to stop and watch and ask questions but Michael leads them quickly out a back door and into a small, high-walled courtyard containing nothing but weeds and a few trash cans.

It is vaguely disappointing. Then Michael gets a wand out of his pocket. It looks like a polished twig, or maybe a very small branch but by the way he is holding it it is clearly a wand. Hermione is fascinated.

He mutters something and taps a brick and suddenly the whole wall is moving, bricks rotating and sliding away. Hermione leans closer trying to see if there is some mechanism doing it, maybe something with strings or gears, but all she can see is ordinary house bricks moving aside to leave an open archway. As she pulls her parents through she looks down to see that they are stepping on the line of foundation bricks that lie flush with the surrounding cobbles. Then she looks up and sees Diagon Alley.

This is more like what she expected! She drags her parents into the middle of the alley, looking around at all the strange people and signs and shop displays and... Only the two restraining hands stop her from running to press her nose against the windows of all the different shops.

Michael is laughing softly but Hermione doesn't care. Her parents are frozen with overwhelming shock but she doesn't notice that either.

Michael speaks gently, his concerned tone aimed more at her parents than at the excited eleven year old. “We need to go to the bank first and change some of your Muggle money into what you'll need to buy Hermione's things, into Wizarding money.”

“Wizarding money?” Hermione looks at him, eagerly. “What's that?”

Michael smiles and starts leading them as he explains about the large golden galleons, the silver sickles, and the tiny bronze knuts; the relationship between them; and how many of each the Grangers can expect to get for their Muggle pounds today.

Hermione is chanting the names and numbers to herself when she is quite interrupted by the sight of the towering white building and the strange little uniformed man standing beside its door.

“This is Gringott's Bank,” Michael informed them. “It's run by goblins. Just stick with me and try not to say anything too insulting and we'll be fine.”

The Goblin watches them with dark, clever eyes while Hermione and her parents tried not to stare at his oddly shaped face, nose, ears, hands, and feet. Michael quickly leads them past him and in through the door.

Inside the bank is quite as grand as its towering marble facade had suggested, with more marble, many counters and doors, and many, many more Goblins. Michael leads them up to one of these, although Hermione has no idea how he knew which one to approach.

“We need to exchange some Muggle money.”

The Goblin examines them all for a moment then gets out a shallow copper dish and puts it on the counter in front of them.

“Put it in here,” his voice is clipped and business like with no hint of social nicety.

Slightly flustered, Hermione's father gets out his wallet and follows Michael's suggestion for the amount of money they'll need. Then he hesitates a moment before adding some more.

“So you can have some spending money at school,” he mutters to Hermione, who looks at the odd looking bank-teller and wonders if it's also just to make sure they don't have to come back in here because they've run out of Wizarding money.

As Michael leads them back out onto the street one of Hermione's hands is still held tight by her mother.

 

Michael Smith first leads them to buy Hermione's new school uniform at Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, a fussy little old-fashioned tailor's shop with a disappointing lack of visible magic. Hermione's disappointment is tempered by her curiosity over her new, odd, clothes and her mother seems impressed by how soon the altered robes will be ready for them.

The next few shops are a flurry of strange pieces of equipment and strange alchemy ingredients and choosing a wand, which is magical enough to make Hermione's heart sing. Then they're in the oddest stationary shop Hermione has ever been in, with square shelves full of scrolls, bundles of large feathers, bottles of ink, and no exercise books or roller-ball pens in sight. They get Hermione ink and quills, and enough rolls of parchment to be getting started. She begs her parents until they buy her a bundle of uncut quills that have a little instruction sheet on how to turn them into pens, along with a small pen knife.

They stop for huge ice creams at Florian Fortescue's, the Ice Cream Parlor in this strange little street. If the ice creams weren't so yummy Hermione would be vibrating in her seat just thinking about where they're going next.

The book shop is everything she could have dreamed, a convoluted shop full of shelves and stacks of books, books that she has never seen anywhere else. There are books on potion making and books on spells; shelves full of books of magical history, and magical creatures; how-to guides and magical makeovers; and so many other subjects. Hermione is bewitched, moving slowly from book to book, looking at titles and summaries and chapter headings, reluctant to put any of them back on their shelves and stacks.

The rest of the afternoon has passed by the time Hermione and her parents have finished negotiating over how many books Hermione is allowed to buy, beyond those on her school list, and especially by the time Hermione has whittled down all the books she wants to that limited number. While she is doing so her mother fetches the freshly altered clothing from Madam Malkin's. They are ready to leave, as soon as they manage to work out how to carry everything.

Before he farewells them Michael Smith hands Hermione a train ticket.

“Keep this safe and bring it with you on September the 1st. I'll meet you at King's Cross station but you'll need this to be able to get onto the platform.”

Hermione looks at it curiously.

One Ticket  
Hogwarts Express  
King's Cross Station, Platform 9 ¾  
11am, 1 September 1991

“Platform nine and three quarters?” Hermione frowns at him.

Michael nods. “Yes, it's hidden, like Diagon Alley. That's why I'll be meeting you there, to show you how to get in and make sure your parents don't get lost on their way out.”

Hermione nods, mentally filing this information.

 

They stop for dinner on their way back out of the city. Hermione is reluctant to leave all her new school things in the car while they eat but is overruled by parental decree. Dinner is nice enough but all Hermione wants is to get back home where she can start reading her new books and maybe see if she can make her new wand do anything.


End file.
